


Caught Fire

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Fire [1]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Romance, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 05:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3346067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She shakes her head. You're welcome doesn't seem enough, though he is, she finds. Welcome to a drink when, God knows, he needs it. To company when solitude is more than anyone should have to bear. To her friendship, and that's what leaves her silent. That's what has her studying the ground, trying to see what he sees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: A post-"The Final Nail" (3 x 15) three-shot. This is . . . angsty and no doubt frustrating in that it (in my view, anyway) sticks to the mess the Caskett relationship was at this point in Season 3. Two short-ish chapters and a third long one. I'll post them today, tonight, and tomorrow. Um. Happy Valentine's Day?

 

 

"Love is friendship that has caught fire.

It is quiet understanding,

mutual confidence,

sharing and forgiving.

It is loyalty through good and bad times.

It settles for less than perfection

and makes allowances for human weaknesses."

— Ann Landers

 

* * *

 

Something nags at her in the moment they part. It makes her inclined to linger, though she tells herself it's better like this. A moment chosen, rather than the jarring flare of her phone. Rather than the kind of reminder she needs more and more often. That this is— _they_ are—a limited partnership.

It's better like this, but there's that nagging something, even though he's grateful for the good she's done him. She sees that in the sincere, clear-eyed smile he gives her as he ducks further into his collar and buries his hands deep in his pockets. Safe and tucked away, maybe, and she tells herself again: It's better like this.

"Thank you, Beckett." He blinks, as though he's surprised there are no more words than that. "Thanks." He sinks warmth into his tone, but he's rocking heel to toe, like he's worse than surprised. Like he's embarrassed. "For the drink." He looks up at her. Half looks up at her. The ground is too fascinating. She can't compete. "For the company."

She shakes her head. _You're welcome_ doesn't seem enough, though he is, she finds. Welcome to a drink when, God knows, he needs it. To company when solitude is more than anyone should have to bear. To her friendship, and that's what leaves her silent. That's what has her studying the ground, trying to see what he sees.

"I have time." The pitch of her voice is strange. Too high and rising at the end, though she doesn't at all mean it to be a question. She's inclined to linger. To seek out this _something_ and square it away, here and now. She's inclined to do him all the good she can. "If you want to walk or talk or just sit." The words aren't right, either. She grimaces at the childish way they trip over one another. The naiveté of the list, like it exhausts all the possibilities. Like it's everything she has to to offer him. She tries again to sound like herself. What she remembers herself sounding like. "If you're not ready to go home. I've got some time."

"I'm fine," he says quickly. He catches himself in the repetition of the lie, though. Before her glare is locked and loaded, he catches himself. "I'll _be_ fine."

She nods. Makes him laugh a little, with the sternness of it. Neither of them moves to go, though. She's tethered by this nagging thing that drags her gaze back to his and parts her lips, though she doesn't know what more there is to say.

"You should go, Kate." He gives her another smile as he says it. Something subdued and stoic this time. "Have a great time tonight."

That stings, though he doesn't seem to mean it to. There's nothing pointed in it. No malice at all.

_And yet._

She blushes with it. She burns, because it's _not_ exactly a moment chosen, is it? _He_ doesn't need the flare of her phone to remind him that there's a new dress waiting, and candlelight he won't get to see her by. He doesn't need the reminder. That's the reality, and it stings.

She nods again, dumbly this time, and he turns away. He's going before her throat opens and the pieces of her work well enough to call after him.

"Night, Castle."

He's far enough gone she has to raise her voice over traffic and chatter and New York at any given moment. He doesn't slow, and she thinks at first he hasn't heard her even though the words feel deafening to her. She's about to call out again. She's about to go after him when he stops. There's the briefest duck of his shoulders before he turns with a wan smile and raises one palm. His fingers open and close in something that's not exactly a wave. He turns again and he's gone.

 

It's a day and then some before they catch their next case. It's not exactly anything Beckett flavored, but she snatches up her desk phone to call him anyway. She'd be appalled by how eagerly she seizes the excuse, if only she weren't so relieved to have it.

It's short lived. The relief. He doesn't answer.

It's not unheard of. He's a heavy sleeper. He lingers in the shower. He leaves things in odd places when he's preoccupied. And, for a technophile, he's terrible about remembering to charge his damned phone. But it's high noon, and it's been a long while since she's waited more than a ring and a half to hear his voice. His _real_ voice. It's twice that now. Three times, before she's making do with the flat, recorded version of him, and that means there's no dead battery to blame. He doesn't answer.

"Castle. Hey." She comes to a halt. Her voice wavers, and there's enough feeling in the two simple words to make her cheeks burn. "Caught a body." Her breath stalls out entirely. Dead air roars in her ears.

_Call me when you get this._ It's the logical thing to say. It's expected, but disappointment ties her tongue. The gnawing worry that he might not. The sinking sensation that she's waiting for him to call already. She's been waiting since he turned from her with something not quite a wave. It's more than a little ridiculous, but she can't make the words come.

"Texting you the address," she says instead. She drop the handset back too forcefully in the cradle. Twin heads snap up. Ryan and Esposito's chatter from across the bullpen breaks off.

"Castle coming?" Ryan grins wide, waiting for it. Some barb from her. Confirmation that they'll have their full-complement for the case, even if its not Beckett flavored.

"Voice mail." She says it to the depths of the bottom drawer of her desk. She makes a show of swapping things from bag to pocket and vice versa, but it's the moment she needs. Five deep breaths to push down the disappointment. To tuck that nagging something away and focus.

"He'll catch up," Esposito says as the two fall into step on either side of her. It's entirely too nonchalant. Entirely too careful to make it clear that no one is reassuring anyone about anything.

Kate dies a little inside. She shrugs and changes the subject. Reiterates some trivial information about the scene the three of them already know, just to have something to say. That's entirely too clear, too. The hole his absence leaves in the world, and the fact that they're _not_ talking about it. It's entirely too obvious.

She feels the look they exchange behind her back as she leans against the elevator wall and scowls down at her phone. She calls up his contact. She falters. The picture is new. His handiwork, of course. It's an arm's length shot of him shoveling comfort food into his mouth. He's been working on his pick-pocketing skills, and she'd pretended not to notice the clumsy grab while she'd leaned her elbows on the sill of the truck's window, waiting for her change.

She thinks of the phone in his hand. His shoulder bumping hers as he'd tugged her pocket open again to drop it back in. She thinks of the solid fact of him. Air puffing out in the cold. Quiet laughter and their knees brushing on the bus stop bench as they sipped hot chocolate.

She skims her finger over it. The two-dimensional circle of his face and the awkward angle of his smile. She flicks it aside and calls up their recent back and forth. She pushes down the urge to linger there. To sweep up and up and find something more of him in the words he gives her, warm and sweet and annoying and salacious and silly, though not so much lately. The date stamps tell a story of everything fewer and farther between.

She pushes down the urge to linger. She taps out the crime scene address and their ETA from the precinct. She hits send and means to pocket the phone. She means to. It's too much already, but her fingers have other ideas. They fly over the screen.

_See you there?_

They hit send before she can think better of it. Before color can flood her cheeks over all the longing curled tight into a single question mark.

 

She doesn't see him. Not at the crime scene. Not at the precinct afterward. It's hours before she hears from him at all. A text back that leaves her missing his voice. Even the flat, recorded version.

It's just a few words, and by the time she has even that much, they're buried deep in a stack of other messages. From the boys. From Lanie, because they're working a case, however straightforward it might be. From Josh, because they have vague plans to get together this evening if nothing comes up for either of them.

Just a few words, and it's a while before she even sees them. Her heart clenches to think of _him_ waiting, but she'd shoved the phone far back in her desk drawer, caught looking one too many times to live with herself.

_Sitting this one out._

And then, enough later that it has its own time stamp.

_That ok?_

_No_. She wants to call. She wants him to answer so she can roar it down the line before he even has a chance to say hello. _No. It's not ok._

But that's not an option, so she taps out something inane. She panics and says the first thing that comes to mind that she _can_ say. She hates to think of him waiting.

_We'll muddle through._

It's away too soon. It's stupid and careless and _cold,_ but the words are already zipping through the ether when she wants to tell him something else entirely. That she misses her partner. That she's _worried_ and she hates this nagging something. That she misses him.

But she can't say that. She can't say any of that.

_Just this once, though._

She hits send. It's all she can say.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She decides she's angry with him. She's working on it, anyway, because the alternatives are unacceptable. She pushes away that nagging something and decides this is just him reverting to type. Wandering off when something new catches his eye. Something old. She thinks about May. About Gina and Demming and summer and how stupid she is, pining away like this. "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A post-"The Final Nail" (3 x 15) three-shot. This is . . . angsty and no doubt frustrating in that it (in my view, anyway) sticks to the mess the Caskett relationship was at this point in Season 3. Two short-ish chapters and a third long one. I'll post them today, tonight, and tomorrow. Happy Valentine's Day?

 

* * *

 

 

"Love is friendship that has caught fire.

It is quiet understanding,

mutual confidence,

sharing and forgiving.

It is loyalty through good and bad times.

It settles for less than perfection

and makes allowances for human weaknesses."

— Ann Landers

* * *

 

_Just this once_.

That's the end of it. There's no acknowledgement or agreement or promise. There's no response at all.

They close the case, and there's nothing even to taunt him with. It's so run of the mill there's no real call for a celebratory drink, and anyway they're all busy. There's no flimsy excuse to call or text or anything else and the silence stretches out.

One day rolls into the next. It's going on a week. They catch another body. It's even more by-the-numbers than the last. She picks up the phone and slams it down again. She's not about to beg.

She decides she's angry with him. She's working on it, anyway, because the alternatives are unacceptable. She pushes away that nagging _something_ and decides this is just him reverting to type. Wandering off when something new catches his eye. Something old. She thinks about May. About Gina and Demming and summer and how _stupid_ she is, pining away like this.

She _is_ angry then. Toweringly, chaotically angry right up to the moment that Martha sails into the bullpen, bright and fluttering and brittle. Truly brittle underneath, though she's smiling all the while.

"Detective, it's lovely to see you, of _course . . ._ " She turns in place uncertainly, disappointment dimming the rest of her performance so only brittle remains. She looks ready to break. "But I was hoping to catch Richard."

* * *

 

There's some kind of minimum safe distance from the precinct. Kate doesn't know why or how to measure it. She feels awful for making Martha walk and bear the burden of small talk all the while, but this nagging something won't let her stop just anywhere.

She watches squares of sidewalk disappear beneath their feet and answers in monosyllables. It feels like forever before the math comes right. She touches Martha's elbow and the two of them turn into a cafe that gets the lunch rush early. It's near enough to empty now to suit.

Kate frets over food. Something to keep Martha company, she thinks, but in the end, coffee is all she can face. The waitress makes herself scarce, sensing the tension at the table, and silence falls.

"Kate, I'm sorry to . . ."

"Martha, no, it's . . ." She sets down the unasked-for silverware that's somehow found its way into her hands. "He hasn't been . . . home?" The last word stands in for too many things. Writing. Licking his wounds. Punishing her or himself or both of them. She doesn't know _what_ she thought he's been doing. How he's been. She doesn't know what she's hoped or feared.

Martha shakes her head. She sips at her own coffee and considers her approach. "He calls." Her tone is flat. She's unsatisfied with the words. "He calls Alexis—however briefly—every night, and if I've . . . "

Her fingers pass over the gloves on the table beside her. Kate can see the deep creases in the leather and wonders how long the woman might have been working herself up to this. How bad it is and how worried she must be that they're here like this.

"He's well enough for that," Martha says finally. "And if I've raised the alarm unnecessarily . . ."

"Alexis thinks he's away." It hardly needs saying, but Martha gives a stiff nod. "And you haven't seen him."

"Nor have you."

The waitress arrives with Martha's salad and a warm-up for Kate. It's a welcome respite in the moment. It's awful when they regard each other across the scarred table, and neither of them knows what's next.

"Not since Valentine's Day." It comes pouring out, such as it is. More than she means to say. Not at all how she means to say it. It's not about her. It's not even about them. "We went for a drink, after . . ."

"After Damian Westlake." The set of Martha's mouth is grim, like the news is worse than she'd hoped. As bad as she'd feared. She moves her salad around on the plate.

"There was a case." Kate wants to give her something. She wants to say it out loud, as if it might sound better. "After that. A few days ago. He texted to say he was . . . sitting it out."

But it sounds grim out loud. Ominous, though Martha nods, like it's somehow encouraging. She summons up a smile. She's about to say something reassuring. She's about to apologize and sweep this under the rug, but Kate cuts in.

"Does he . . . _do_ this? He's . . . in the city?" She hardly waits for Martha's nod this time. She hates the way weight falls on her words. She hates how rigid and unforgiving she sounds, but the words pour out. Something twisted and unkind in her has to ask. "Does he just _leave_ like this?"

Martha's spine straightens at that. A hard look passes between them, and somehow, suddenly, it's clear what they are and are _not_ talking about. Exactly, _precisely_ what they are and are not talking about. Kate is the first to look away, and that's clear, too. Something inside that clamors. That she ignores and hides away. Not very well, apparently.

"Richard has . . ." The fact of his name softens something for Martha. For both of them, if Kate is honest with herself. "He feels things deeply, however blithely and easily he may seem to move through the world. And he's lost an awful lot in the last little while."

_Gina_.

The name presents itself too readily. Kate almost says it. She almost does, but can't in the end. That nagging something won't let her any more than Martha's hard look. In the end, that particular name seems to be the least of it.

"To answer your question, dear," Martha goes on, as kind and easy as though they've been discussing the weather all the while, " _no,_ he does _not_ just leave, though he's . . ." she makes a exaggerated gesture to herself " . . . called in the cavalry once or twice in extremis."

"You're worried." Martha doesn't bother to nod this time. It's that obvious. "I'm worried, too," she repeats it. She fixes the sound of the words in her mind. The relief in saying it out loud. "I'm worried about him."

* * *

 

Nothing much comes of it beyond someone to share it with. _Worry._ The new name she has for that nagging something. Relief doesn't last. Kate doesn't feel any better for it, in the end. The name or the way Martha's face mirrors it back to her. They part on the street, each promising to keep the other apprised of anything new.

"I'll catch him on the phone, darling." Martha presses Kate's fingers. "Shame him out of this if I have to."

"Shame." Kate smiles. They both smile, but there's nothing hopeful in it. "That works on Castle?"

"When properly, _shamelessly_ applied." Martha takes a little bow. "Thank you, dear." She kisses Kate's cheek and gives her a look long and searching enough to call up a blush. And then she's off.

Kate buries her hands in her pockets and drags her feet up the few steps to the precinct's revolving door. She already has her shoulder to the glass when she sees Ryan through it, buttoned up and carrying an evidence envelope under his arm. They revolve once, twice, and end up back out on the street, puffs of laughter hanging in the air between them.

"Making off with evidence?"

Kate knows it's too cheerful. She knows she's overdoing it.

"Wedding's not gonna pay for itself." Ryan meets her half way, even though things have been weird all week. He taps the corner of the envelope. "No, not ours any more." His eyes flick away, like he doesn't want to bring it up, whatever it is. Which pretty much means there's only one thing _can_ be about.

"Victoria Westlake?"

Ryan nods. "The jewelry Callie Langston volunteered, when we were still looking at Castle's . . ." He changes gear. "Espo wanted to be the one to take it back." He catches Kate's questioning look. "She's at work."

"The Varick Club." Her eyes drop to the steps. "Espo was a little too . . ."

"Eager," Ryan supplies. "I figure for Lanie's sake, I'd . . . you know. "

"Good thinking." She tries to fix a smile on her face. Ryan expects it, and it makes sense, but the moment is uneasy. There's something unpleasant rolling in her gut.

"Everything good with . . . " It's tentative enough to snap Kate's gaze up to his. He flinches, but stands firm. He pushes on. "Mrs. R. seemed upset."

"Nothing . . ."

_Nothing to worry about._ It's what she meant to say, but she trails off, too new to this feeling to sell the lie. Too new to this sudden hunch that she hates. She reaches a hand out toward Ryan, swallowing hard. It's the last thing in the world she wants to do, but one way or another, she needs to know. Martha needs to know.

"Why don't you let me take that?" Ryan's eyebrows climb, but she keeps her voice even. It's no small miracle, given how much she hates this. "It's late. Go take Jenny out. I can drop this by."

"Yeah." He hands it over, holding on a little too long, like there's more he wants to say. "Jenny. She'll like that."

He lets go. Kate slides the envelope under her arm and starts back down the steps, snatching up the momentum before it bleeds away. Ryan's voice stops her, though.

"Beckett?" He's stranded at the top of the stairs, looking like he'd have rather kept his mouth shut. But he goes on. "Are _you_ ok?"

"Fine," she says immediately and feels herself colliding with all of it. The nagging something. The memory of a lie twice told and the way she called him on it. She shoves her hands in her pockets and hugs the envelope tighter to her side. "I'll _be_ fine."

It's a lie. Even she doesn't believe it.

* * *

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks for reading. I'll put the last chapter, which is long, up tomorrow. Again. Um. Sorry for my Brain?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I'm fine._ She can see the words forming on his lips. There's a part of her that's relieved. Something empty and echoing that tells her she's done enough. She can go. Call Martha and tell her where to find him. There's a part of her that's terrified of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Final chapter of this post-"The Final Nail" (3 x 15) three-shot. Frustrating. I warned you about that, right? Happy Valentine's Day?

 

 

"Love is friendship that has caught fire.

It is quiet understanding,

mutual confidence,

sharing and forgiving.

It is loyalty through good and bad times.

It settles for less than perfection

and makes allowances for human weaknesses."

— Ann Landers

* * *

 

"Look, I asked not to . . ." His expression when he yanks open the door is closer to nasty than she's ever seen him outside of an interrogation. "Beckett." They stare at each through the narrow gap in the door he's barely cracked open. He's hollow eyed and unshaven, but it's no worse than that. On the surface of things, anyway. It's no worse than that. "Beckett, what are you doing here?"

That's worse. He's surprised. Of course he is, but that's buried, along with every other emotion, under something flat and hopeless. That nagging something, split open wide now.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she blurts.

"I'm alone," he says it quickly enough that it startles him. He looks wounded for less than a moment. Panicked and . . apologetic? She's hardly begun puzzling it out, though—she's hardly had time to address the fact that she was sure until this very second that he _wasn't_ alone—when his face goes hard again. "If that's what you're worried about."

"I'm worried about _you_." The words tumble out immediately. No filter at all, and that's an answer for her as well. How she came to be here and why Her voice carries. It's more than occupational hazard. It's the frayed ends of her giving way, because he's alone. There's no reason in the world for that to be true, but he is and she's so _relieved_ that her voice carries.

It's loud.

One door opens down the hall. There's movement behind another. A hush falls here and stage whispers break out there. They stare at each other, the weight of time and place and circumstance hanging overhead.

"Martha is worried about you." She blurts it out quickly. Before he can open his mouth. Before he can shut the door on her and send her away. And he was going to. He was going to try.

"My mother?" The door slips open a little more. His facade cracks. The cold mantle he's hardly even had time to draw around him. He slaps at the pocket where his phone should be, but it's not on him. "Alexis. She's . . ."

"Alexis is fine." She feels a twinge of guilt. A rush of embarrassment and a driving desire to _leave_. To get the hell out of here and do some damned work on herself and whatever is going on inside her that the whole wide world already seems to know about.

Another door opens. It's nearer than the first, and a less-than-sober sounding argument slips out before there's the clang of metal on metal as it stops hard against the security bar. Professional instinct swings Kate around toward the noise. Something more complicated draws her focus back to him. Something not complicated at all when she sees how he's used the moment to pull something like himself up. To gather the lie around him.

_I'm fine._ She can see the words forming on his lips.

There's a part of her that's relieved. Something empty and echoing that tells her she's done enough. She can go. Call Martha and tell her where to find him. There's a part of her that's terrified of this. The weight of all he means to her. Of all she means to _him._ But there's another part of her that'll be damned if, after _everything_ , this ends with something that's not quite a wave.

"Castle."

She darts a glance back down the hall. She lets one hand fall to her hip. It's a dirty move. He shifts in the doorway. His gaze follows hers, as she knew it would. She steps toward him. She curls her fingers around the doorframe, high up so he can't miss them. He doesn't. He glares, and for the length of a breath she wonders if he might slam the door on her anyway. But she stands firm.

"Can I come in?"

It's more a demand than a question—bravado and nothing else driving her now. She half expects a fight. Low, icy words and another lie. Something worse to make her go.

But his eyes fall closed. His shoulders hitch with one weary, pained breath, and when he speaks, it's a plea. "Kate. It's not a good idea."

"I know." She faces him as she says it. She looks at him, steady on, and doesn't blink when he meets her eyes. "I know it's not." She lets her hand drop to her side. She clears the way for him to slam the door on her, if that's what he's going to do. "Can I come in anyway?"

* * *

 

_Not much more than a bed_.

The words crowd the inside of her head as she stands by uselessly, waiting for him to clear a handful of shirts from the arm of the club chair. It's not quite accurate. There's something in black lacquer with drawers holding up the flat panel and a mostly closed door with enough light bouncing off tile to tell her it's a bathroom. The room's footprint is small, but it's New York, and the sound proofing is about the only thing that sets it off from any given hotel room.

She scans the scene silently, habit and unease working together to sweep details into her mind. The mess of wallet and watch, keys and the dark face of his phone on the tiny square of the bedside table. The dangling tail of the disconnected charger falling across a heap of books. The bottle and one glass, the base thick with the smudge of fingerprints.

"Why here?" She doesn't expect the the question any more than he does, though she's the one asking it.

He thinks about it. He busies himself with the shirt in his hands, folding it neatly in half and half again. He holds it to his body—poor armor, but better than nothing maybe. He shrugs. "Easy to get lost."

_Lost_. The word sends a shiver through her. A slice of anger, too. It's something her dad used to say, not that he'd remember it.

"It's the first one," he says carefully. He gestures toward the bottle. She must have been staring. "Mostly full."

"Good." He gives her an odd look. A little hard, and she hears how it must sound to him. How it might, anyway—cold and judgmental. A warning, as though there are conditions to her being here. "I'm glad," she stutters. _Amends_. That's how she thinks of it. "I'm glad you're not . . . lost like that."

His head tips. His brows come together like he's puzzling over her and the mystery almost has a smile touching his lips. Almost. His forehead smooths and she sees a flash of something like guilt. He turns away as if it to hide it, then turns back just as quickly.

"They keep member files." He flushes at that, like it wasn't exactly a decision to remind her. _Yes, I'm a member._ "The scotch. It's just here when I . . . I didn't come here to get lost like that."

She nods, repetition of the words stuck somewhere behind the relief she's breathing through. _I'm glad._

He holds his hand out to the chair. She edges past him. It's at the foot of the bed, and he's half in the way. Their bodies brush in passing and she thinks of the street corner on Valentine's Day. She thinks of winter coats and his hands shoved deep in his pockets. She remembers the frisson of danger in the moment, in spite of all that, and feels the distance between them now.

_I miss you._

She wants to say it, but it feels silly with her knees bumping the bed and his at right angles as he sits at the foot. It feels complicated, and they both know this isn't a good idea. But she asked to come in and he let her. And now she doesn't know what to say at all.

She looks to him. Old habits, despite the strangeness of this time and place. Despite the distance. She looks to him, and he's watching her. _Old habits,_ she thinks, and it conjures up a wan smile.

He doesn't return it. "How did you . . ." He winces like he'd rather not ask whatever it is. He'd rather not know. "Why would you even think to look?"

"Had an errand here," she says carefully. "Ryan was on his way, but . . . I had hunch." He nods, his head heavy and his eyes on the floor. It clicks. Part of what he's asking. _Why would you even think to look._ "I was worried."

He glances at her sidelong, then back at the floor. At his linked fingers drooping between his knees. At anything but her. "My mother . . ."

". . . is worried, too." She cuts him off, impatient with him. With _this,_ though she hardly knows what it is. "That's not why . . . _I_ was worried, Castle. I came because I was worried."

"Thanks." The single, flat word comes after a drawn-out moment.

She looks up sharply, half thinking it's sarcastic, and ready with something in kind that might carry her back out the door after all this. But he's restless, shifting on the foot of the bed, and she thinks of Valentine's Day again. His thank you then and there, sincere for all that it was stilted, and less than he wanted to say.

"Why here?" She comes back to it, gently this time. "The Plaza. The Four Seasons . . . place in the Hamptons." The last comes at a cost. A pang sharp enough that he meets her eyes, whether it hurts him, too, or it's just something in her voice. "Why come here?"

"No reason, Beckett." He shrugs.

"Castle." Something makes her push. Relief or after-the-fact horror at possibilities she hadn't let herself think about. Something brings her back to it again. Because she wants to know. Because he wants her out of there and there's too big a part of her that's on his side. It feels all kinds of wrong. She pushes. "There's always a story."

"Then tell me one." He laughs, short, sharp, and bitter. A lash of anger she almost prefers to this flat defeat. "I'm out of the business."

"Damian Westlake," she says instantly. She looks around, suddenly sure of her self. "This isn't you."

"Sure about that?"

He holds her gaze long enough for it to remind her of the glimpse when he first opened the door. That raw streak of something like cruelty. Whatever he intended—whatever he means by it now—the fact of it settles her. It makes her certain of him. What she knows about him. She runs a hand along the arm of the chair, she looks around, taking in the sleekness of the room with its too-harsh masculine edge. It's different in every way from the loft. From the things he surrounds himself with.

"You've come here." She eyes the set of things on the bedside table and the mouth of his duffle gaping in the only possible place for it to be out of the way. It speaks of repetition, if not habit. "To get lost."

Images pop in her mind. Women on his arm. Plunging necklines and high side slits. Red carpets and five-star restaurants. There's no denying any of that, though she'd like to. She'd dearly like to, and the part of her that wanted badly to leave this on the doorstep is clamoring again.

But there's the other part of her that thinks of the loft again. That thinks of laser tag and Martha and Alexis perched on stools at the counter while he cooks. The safe haven it is and the way they so easily welcome her in has felt like an honor from the very first. There's the part of her that thinks of Kyra Blaine and the real warmth of him. The awkward chivalry, and stubborn faith that drive her mad too often.

"You don't go to the Four Seasons . . ." — she draws a shaky breath and grips the chair harder. The part of her that knows him wins out — " . . . to get lost."

"Or the Plaza." His words come quietly just when hers run out. "I come here." He doesn't look at her. She wishes he would. The set of his shoulders is uneasy and she sees his knuckles going white and she wishes he would just _look_ at her. "I _have._ " He leans into the past tense. He does look at her then, just briefly. "Not lately."

There's a leaden kind of relief to it. It aches, too. Oh, how it _aches,_ but there's relief that he wants her to know. That he wants her to do the math. _Not lately._

"You've come here," she says again, conceding the point. Telling him she knows. She believes it and it matters. _Not lately._ It matters, however screwed up that is, for him to care, when it's none of her business. For her to be relieved, when she has no right. She says it again just to hear the words. "You've come here. Before. But it starts with him, doesn't it?"

His chin rises and falls. A nod that's grudging and impressed at once. "A gift." The corner of his mouth jerks up. Something so hard it's almost a sneer. "When Meredith . . ." He waves it away. A part of the story she more or less knows, though he's never said. "Damian and I had lost touch. With Alexis, the kind of people in my life _before_ Alexis." He shrugs. It's a fact to him. Curious, but not especially painful. "I'd lost touch with a lot of people, but Damian and I ran into each other during the worst of it. He kept the scotch coming and I poured my heart out."

He stops. She looks up quickly. The corner of his jaw works hard. He's angry. Furious with himself for something so long ago, and she knows the feeling. Wanting to take back the pieces of himself, too casually given. She knows it, but it feels wrong on him.

"The next day, special delivery. Someone like Callie at my door with a membership card and a note." He shakes his head, like it means something new in light of everything of late. "'Turnabout is fair play'." He looks around at the room. "I came here. Like this," he adds, quickly. He catches her eye. He gestures to the pile of books. To the glass and the bottle. Alone. To get lost. He wants her to know that. She wants to tell him she does. Of _course_ she knows, but he's going on already. A story, though he doesn't seem to realize it.

"I was so _angry_. Day and night . . . just so furious that Meredith could . . ." The story breaks around them like waves and she wonders how bad it is. How much devil there is in the details. "I didn't . . . Alexis couldn't see me like that. She was so _little."_

"The cavalry." She doesn't mean to interrupt. She really doesn't, but she's glad in the end.

He turns toward her, eyes wide with surprise. He laughs again, pained this time. Sore and tired, but familiar. He nods. "The cavalry. My mother took Alexis to the Hamptons. Meredith went . . . wherever Meredith goes. And I came here for a while." He looks down at the dark fabric of the duvet like he hardly recognizes it. Like he hardly recognizes anything about the place or himself. "And then I went back to my life."

She's silent. She's unmoving, with her fingers wrapped around the arms of the club chair. Helpless until he speaks. More helpless still when he does.

"You were right." His voice is hollow. "I never knew him. He never knew me. I made him up."

"I _was_ right." She leans forward. She waits for him to look at her. There's no smile for him when he does. This isn't platitude or the way they bicker to keep minimum safe distance between them. "It's time to let him go, Castle. It's time to go back to your life."

He doesn't respond at first. He's still and staring, his eyes moving from detail to detail like it's all unfamiliar. She's at a loss. Helpless again and as stalled as he is. Worse than that when he turns his face toward her.

"I don't know what that is. My life. Everything. Writing. The precinct. It all feels like wishful thinking." He looks down at his hands like he can't imagine them in motion. The confident arch of his wrist above the keyboard or the sweep of his thumb as he clicks a pen open and waits with an expectant look for the words to come. "I don't know anymore what I made up. About me. About . . . anyone . . . "

He doesn't look at her. He doesn't dare, but it's obvious all the same. A different parade of images now. Sensations. Air crackling between them and slow warmth flooding her veins. Silk flowers in her hand and the real thing in his. Standing shoulder to shoulder with bright sun pouring through the details that pull her life to pieces. Shoulder to shoulder again and the spark of her mother caught in the slanting capitals of a guest list written in his hand.

A kiss.

Another kiss.

His hands in hers. Lights and sirens and chaos in the back of an ambulance. No one in the world but them.

"Castle . . ." His name drops from her lips to meet his last anguished word. Her blood pounds in her ears. "I . . ."

"You don't have to . . ." He turns sharply from her. One hand scrubs at his cheek as if to hide whatever she might see. "Beckett, I'm sorry. This is . . ." He laughs and tips his head back like he's swallowing down too much at once. "This isn't a good idea. I know that and I'm . . ."

Her phone buzzes. It roars in the sudden, absolute silence between them.

"The precinct." She says it in a choked rush. She holds the bright screen up. Terrible proof. Terrible.

"You have a case."

The words are even. A bland statement of fact, but she feels guilty. Defensive. Pulled to pieces because it's bad enough, but it could have been Josh, and this is _terrible._

"I w- was going to . . . to . . . " she stutters. "Boring." She looks up. He's studying his hands. "It's boring. But you could come."

He shakes his head. "I don't think . . . " He looks at her sidelong. "You'll muddle through, right?" It's a joke, but it's not.

"Once," she says. "I told you. Just once."

"Once. Stay in the car." It's not a smile, but his face softens. His shoulders drop and it's closer to rest than weight. "Bad at following instructions, Beckett. You know me."

"I do, Castle. I know you."

Her phone buzzes again. She grips it tight and fights down the urge to smash it against shiny black something.

"Probably should go." He gestures at it. Reluctant. Relieved. Too many things.

"Probably need to." They stand in the same moment, in sync, and _now_ it's not awkward. Now, when she's leaving, they move easily through the cramped space. It's another aching point.

He reaches for the door handle, but doesn't turn it yet. She stands half facing him. Waiting and not waiting. She wants to make him promise to go home. To come back to her, but it's impossible. It's impossible to say.

"Thank you, Beckett." He studies his fingers against the silver. "For finding me."

"Detective." Her fingers brush the shield at her waist. They share a miserable kind of smile, and she can't leave it like that. "And I know you."

"Yeah?" She nods. He nods back. It's not agreement, exactly, but it's something a little more whole. Willingness to believe. To hear her. His fingers fiddle with the door handle, still not turning it. "Tell me something I don't know."

Her breath catches. Her mouth crowds with too many things, every one important. Every one of them impossible.

That there's no one in the world—not her dad or anyone—who knows as much about her mother's murder and what it's done to her. What it's still doing to her every day.

That she waited in line for hours to have him sign a book and her heart was broken when it burned along with everything.

That he's one of the worst liars she's ever met and no one in her adult life has made her laugh like he does.

That even with the memory of the icy rage rolling off him after she'd nearly put Vulcan Simmons through the one-way mirror, the memory of his fist slamming and slamming into Hal Lockwood's face, he's one of the three who has _her_ unshakable faith.

That she can't forget the taste of his mouth and the way his hands called up fire in her skin.

That she misses him.

It's a weak moment. Unfair. Terrible. And inevitable maybe. It feels that way when she steps close him. When she sees her fingers resting on his shoulder and hardly recognizes them. When her cheek brushes his and her lips barely graze the skin just in front of his ear.

"Amazing. You were right. That was amazing."

It feels inevitable when she whispers it.

Terrible, unfair, and inevitable when she goes.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ugh. I know. Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks for reading. Sorry, I guess this is my disturbed Brain rebelling against the sweetness of Foolish and Made Wise. Brain can't have nice things.


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